Elizabeth Olsen in Talks for Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Age of Ultron

With word coming that Ben Affleck has been cast as the new Batman for Zack Snyder’s upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie, Marvel have news of their own to announce with regards to two of their biggest upcoming tentpoles, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Bradley Cooper has just been revealed as being in talks for the former, set to lend his voice as Rocket Raccoon to James Gunn’s space-bound blockbuster if all goes well.

And now Bleeding Cool report that the brilliant Elizabeth Olsen is in talks to play Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. Scarlet Witch, in Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, noting that her talks are further along than Cooper’s.

Scarlet Witch is the brother of Quicksilver, who Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass) is set to play in the sequel. And whilst their comic book origins have the siblings as the offspring of Magneto, that character’s rights are set up at Fox, which means we should be able to look forward to a new story for the duo in Whedon’s next movie.

Olsen of course first made waves on the independent film front, with terrific performances in the likes of Martha Marcy May Marlene, Liberal Arts, and the upcoming Kill Your Darlings. She’s also set to return to the festival circuit in the next few weeks with Therese, and will soon be soon in Spike Lee’s Oldboy remake. And add to that the upcoming Godzilla remake – which coincidentally co-stars Taylor-Johnson (maybe Whedon has been lucky enough to see an early sneak peek at their on-screen chemistry in Gareth Edwards’ upcoming monster movie) – and you can see that she’s becoming more and more prominent in the studio system as well as its independent counterpart.

All the original cast are set to reprise their roles from Whedon’s first film, and with any luck, we’ll also be getting Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) back in the mix as well, at least for a bit.

Whedon did an amazing job of assembling the team and getting them to finally work together in The Avengers last year, and all the interviews he’s taken since suggest he knows exactly what he wants from the sequel. Which is to say, he’s not going to make the same movie twice, which is excellent news.

The Avengers should have a new dynamic, and bringing in the Maximoff siblings should make for a really interesting change to that dynamic.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is set to hit cinemas on May 1st, 2015, bringing to a close Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Production is expected to begin early next year. Here’s to hoping that Olsen’s talks go well, because she sounds like an inspired choice for the part.

Since graduating, I spend as much time as possible watching films/TV shows, reading books, and listening to music. So getting to write about what I love is nothing short of awesome.
Biggest film-related hope for 2014/ever: Guy Ritchie announcing the RocknRolla sequel is finally moving forward.